Osprey have produced another excellent profile at a reasonable price – a brief history of the development of Count Zeppelin’s remarkable (for its period) rigid airship. Over the years many myths and mysteries have abounded about these monsters. Here, in one compact volume, their basic history has been accurately recorded. It is obvious to the knowledgeable lighter-than-air researcher that the Zeppelin Museum has played a significant part in supplying information.
Apart from a minor error describing Zeppelin’s first floating shed on ‘Lake Mansell’ – which should read ‘on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) at Mansell’, mistakes are non-existent!

39 black & white digital photographs give good pictorial coverage. Definition whilst not perfect is adequate. A small line map showing AIR DEFENCES OF LONDON 1918 is one I have never seen before and is self-explanatory. Perhaps the most striking feature of the book is the 13 coloured drawings of individual classes of Zeppelins, which are very accurate. These are by Ian Palmer and he is to be congratulated. A further three paintings by him are very dramatic and convey something which a photograph in WWI could never equal. The painting of the ‘SPAHKORB’ is particularly impressive.

With books of this quality the general public are now getting a much clearer picture of airships generally, and whilst many books in the 1950s and 60s perpetuated untrue myths and mysteries which then became taken as fact, writers like Charles Stephenson who use the facilities such as the Zeppelin Museum, Royal Aeronautical Society and similar institutions do good work correcting same.